Rating: 
Summary: Good breadth and quite informative, but...
Review: ...you *absolutely* need to read a lot more in order to score well in the exam. The exam questions are trickier than what you'll find in this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Have the right expectation
Review: Firstly, I must say that the SCEAJ2EE certification is supposed to test candidates on a wide range of knowledge on J2EE and other enterprise technologies. I am not sure if it is possible to comprehensively squeeze all the information required for the exam into one single book of acceptable thickness. Probably a few good books are needed to serve the purpose. In the past, many candidates faced a lot of problems preparing for the exam because they may not know where to start searching for the relevant information. There were quite a few books they have to read and each of them probably deals with one topic in great depth. There was no overview, just focus. This book provides an overview to what kind of knowledge is needed to pass the exam. It may not be complete, but it provides a skeleton for one to build one's knowledge for the exam. After achieving a good breadth of knowledge, one can then go in-depth. If the right kind of expectation is set, I believe this will proof to be a good book.
Rating:
Summary: Should include this book as one of your materials
Review: Hi,
Why I give 3 stars is this book is not enough for the whole exam as they have missed legacy connectivity(this is really a vague topic and you really need help in this topic),messaging etc.I don't know whether the material for ejb is enough.But the material for security,Internationalization,protocols,design patterns,common architecture really tells what you should focus on. That is really good.For those chapters you really need this so that you don't have to break your head searching for material.Whatever material that is covered in this book is very concise.A real study guide you can say.But if they have covered all the topics I would have given 5 stars
Rating: 
Summary: good objectives list - nothing more
Review: I agree with the previous reviewer completely - it's just a list of topics you need to cover to prepare for the exam. You could have just printed out the table of content from this book and start reading other books on each of the topics with the same success.
Rating:
Summary: Beggars have no choices !!!
Review: I am an M.S. in Computer Science(from MIT) and there being no choice of other "Officially Endorsed SCEA Guide" I tend to be a little favourable to this book, but overall this is a good guide. Writers are qualified and content is to the point. The book covers all 10 units of SCEA exam, but don't expect it to be exhaustive(how can you if you have a least idea of the syllabus of the exam !!). A good guide if you want to brush up your knowledge.
Take my words, it is worth the money even if you have never purchased a book online(I don't think it is available in most bookstores). Better purchase it online from the likes of amazon.com !
Rating:
Summary: A brief, helpful tool for test preparation
Review: I carry around far too many books in business travel, so I appreciate the short ones: Fowler's UML Distilled comes to mind, as does Clark's Designing Storage Area Networks, Brooks's The Mythical Man Month, and Bloch's Effective Java. Cade and Roberts have reduced their guide's content to the essential elements for test preparation; I appreciate that good work. Plenty of books try to boot-strap the reader into their topic in the name of reaching a broader audience. Trust me, you'll appreciate this effort less as the overlap in your book collection grows. You'll appreciate it even less still when you have to box them all up for a move. If you've been working with web designs for a few years and have used a practical, higher-level language to describe new systems to other people, and you've been through J2EE systems a few times, you're probably ready to certify. All you need is some focus and an idea what to expect to build your confidence; this little study guide, complemented perhaps by studying with other test candidates, will take you the rest of the way.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely Superficial
Review: I didn't find in this study guide, what I've expected (based on my experience with other study guides): (1)Precise explanations of the basic concepts, (2) Quizlets to test the important and hard to understand concepts, (3) Providing solid answers for the quizlets including the Why's and the Why Not's, (4)Concrete discussions of at least a few intricacies in each topic, (5)A thorough set of multiple choice questions at the end of each chapter, (6) A thorough explanation of the right and the wrong answers, (7)A Test Simulator CD, etc. The coverage of the topics and the multiple choice questions is "very sketchy."
Rating:
Summary: What A Study Guide Should Be
Review: I disagree with what some readers feel about the book. This book is just what a study guide should be. Concise and focused on the objectives of the exam. I read the book, took the exam and passed. I had very little time to study and this book, being so concise, definitely helped. If it had taken 1000 pages to help me prepare for a 48 questions exam, then I would think that the author merely just did a 'cut and paste' from EJB specs and a few other books. Instead, this author bothered to extract the essence of the information required for SCEA and presented it to the reader. Most of the sections - Security, I18n, Protocols, EJB, and Design Pattern are well written in an easy to understand and concise manner. Having said all that, I wonder why some objectives are missing. Common Architecture, Legacy Connectivity and Messaging are left out completely. Also, the UML section could have covered a few more notations. Still a good book for SCEA candidates but take note, it says "Study Guide" not "Idiot's Guide". So don't expect the book to teach you how to write the "Hello World" Bean.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Overview for Exam For the Experienced
Review: I found this book almost PERFECT for my needs. Short, concise, and focused on the exam. The sample questions were also very reflective of the exam. If you pass the sample questions, you are probably ready for the exam. With what you learn from the sample questions, content as well as question style, you should actually do a bit better on the exam. That was my experience- about 75% on the book questions, 87% (42/48) on the exam, with no extra study after my initial reading. And considering the purpose of architect certification is to certify someone with 5+ years experience and deep understanding of design and architectural issues, then a more detailed book would be a thick painful experience. Also, a more detailed book would commit the authors to exposing more of the exam content, and devalue it as a fair measure of an architect. The fact that it requires a wide professional background with some core reading is excellent. If you struggle with the exam, enjoy the honest feedback! You have more reading to do, and experience to gain. With sufficient experience in Java, UML, design patterns, security, general IT and web knowledge, and basic architectural principles, the book more than suffices. Basic EJB knowledge is sufficient since the book doesn't expect a programmer's knowledge of APIs and such. If you are new to architecture, my recommendations are similar to another reviewers:
UML Distilled, Martin Fowler
Design Patterns, Gamma et al
Mastering Enterprise Java Beans, Roman, Amber, Jewell
EJB Design Patterns, Floyd Marinescu And if you don't know enough about design patterns and UML to pass those chapters before even reading the chapters, you may be taking the exam a bit prematurely. I will agree with one statement- the book lacks chapters on some of the objectives. But, considering that they might be considered fair prerequisites for someone qualified to take the exam, I'm not complaining. Though, in looking over my exam results, most of my wrong answers were from the sections without corresponding chapters...common architectures, legacy connectivity, messaging :(. I think my proclivity for screen-scraping did me in. All-in-all, a masterful book and exam.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than nothing..
Review: I guess the book is better than nothing but Mark Cade should
be embarrased about this attempt at a study guide. It is incomplete for the exam objectives it has and is totally missing
information on several of the objectives.
The only reason to get it is that he is an assesorof the SCEA
and thus the questions that exist in the book (meager though they are will probally help in getting a feel for the exam questions). ...
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